How to text like Koreans ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Koreans have their own norms when texting, which usually mean there are some "misspellings" and other colloquial uses in texting. 

Today we'll check out some of these norms and the vibes behind them! 

Let's take a look a conversation to see what kinds of things we see!

술모임🍻

3 participants

모해?ㅋㅋ

10:30 AM

1

10:31 AM

그냥 있지 ㅎㅎㅎ

내일 점심 ㄱㄱ??

10:32 AM

1

10:33 AM

ㅇㅇ 굿굿~ 12시30분?

찐맛집 찾았어! 너 완전 좋아할듯ㅋㅋ

10:35 AM

1

10:36 AM

헐 대박!!! 완전 기대된다 ㅠㅠㅠ

Alright, so first off, we have the first person asking:

모해?ㅋㅋ

Which already has two things packed into it:

1. 모해 is actually a common "misspelling" of 뭐해 which means "What are you doing/up to?"
2. ㅋㅋ is close to "haha" or "lol" in English. For the most part, the more ㅋ the funnier something is, but in this case it is closer to how most of the time ending a text with "haha" or "lol" gives it a chiller vibe

Next up! 

그냥 있지 ㅎㅎㅎ

그냥  있지 here means "Just here / just hanging" followed by ㅎㅎㅎ (another way of going "haha" or "lol")

Grammar point!

The -지 at the end of 있지 is a way to have something like "you know". Usually it is seeking a soft confirmation like: 

맛있지? = It's delicious, right?

But here, it's more like a common understanding of the situation. So, the whole phrases is close to:

그냥 있지 = Just hanging, ya know 

The ㅎㅎㅎ is similar to ㅋㅋㅋ, but slightly different vibe. ㅎㅎㅎ is closer to the emoji 😊, whereas ㅋㅋㅋ is closer to 😂. I really hope that makes sense!

The next one the person is asking if they want to grab lunch tomorrow (내일 점심), but it is followed by "ㄱㄱ". The ㄱㄱ here means "go go" in English. So, it's a more fun way to say "wanna go to lunch tomorrow?"

Next up this message has 3 good ones back-to-back:

ㅇㅇ 굿굿~ = ㅇㅇ + 굿굿 + ~

• ㅇㅇ is short for 응응 which is "yes, yes"
• 굿굿 is "good good"
• ~ is just a little flourish that tends to get added to the ends of sentences as a fun little thing. It's actually funny because when you hear Korean people speak, you'll naturally hear that kind of melodic vibrato at the end of their speech, so it just got translated into text as well!

Next up:

찐맛집 찾았어! 너 완전 좋아할듯ㅋㅋ

Here we start with a nice one!

• 찐맛집 = 진짜 (really, very) + 맛집 (tasty house/ good spot)
• 찾았어 = 찾다 (to find) + 았어 (past tense modifier)

The next sentence is broken down as follows:

• 너 = you
• 완전 = completely
• 좋아할듯 = 좋아하다 (to like) + ㄹ (future modifier) + -듯 (comes from the word 듯하다, which means "to seem" or "to appear." When attached to a verb, it adds the meaning of conjecture or speculation)

So, in total, the second sentence reads like: "I think you'll totally like it!" And our well-known ㅋㅋ following.

Last message! 

헐 대박!!! 완전 기대된다 ㅠㅠㅠ

• 헐 = "Whoa" or "Wow"
• 대박 = Close to "amazing" or "incredible"
• 완전 기대된다 =  완전 (same as above) + 기대된다 (기대되다 (to look forward to) with the active modifier of -ㄴ다, I am looking forward to it)
• ㅠㅠㅠ = crying eyes (in this case, tears of joy 🥹)

Something else you tend to see are messages with absolutely no spacing whatsoever. They just jam pack all the words together with a completely disregard for proper grammar. So, don't be surprised if you just see a huge block of text!

In addition to the kind of texting norms we've taken a look at today, there is a HUGE amount of emoticons that are very popular to use in Korea. Usually when people are done texting, they send one to kind of finish the convo. They are so popular that people purchase packs from Kakao. They're super high quality and have one for pretty much any situation or emotion!

A small sample of the emoticons on KakaoTalk

For instance, say that you are having a tough time that day, between getting out of bed, not feeling too good, but you need to put on a happy face instead. Pretty complicated feeling, right? Well, there's an emoticon for just that:

웃자.. (Let's smile..) (From the sad smile bear emoticon pack)